TechCrunch Extra Crunch this week posted a pair of articles containing admonishment and advice for tech PR pros. The top portion of the posts does appear for free in regular TechCrunch. The full text is available only to TC EC subscribers. We hereby excerpt (in fair-use fashion) what our readers most need to know.
Invest 15 minutes in last week’s LA Times profile of Huawei and you’ll appreciate the power of candor. The Chinese telecom giant had every reason to expect a grilling from legendary journalist Norman Pearlstine and his team. Instead, Huawei received fair treatment in context useful for both parties.
RSA Conference (RSAC) has come and gone, and hopefully the email flow has finally stopped. As usual, the conference and its associated 300 or so emails shows what the best and worst PR practices are. This time I asked Sam if I could share with you my analysis of these inquiries, in the hope that we (we being the trade press) can work better with you.
SWMS subscriber Amanda Orr writes:
Thank you for bringing this topic to the light in Media Survey, Sam, as it’s been on my professional mind for quite some time. Anecdotally, about three quarters of my clients over the past two to three years have had “social good” corporate missions.
I’ve previously written about managing difficult clients and maintaining profitability – two daily challenges in the life of PR leadership. While these are critical to your everyday role, there’s another key factor that will help or hurt you while juggling the work: your team.
It’s time to address the big bad B word: Budget. Oh, and that O word, too: Overservice. Budgets are one of the most important aspects of any client/agency relationship: they help set the basis for the scope, and without the dollars, an agency can’t operate.
SWMS contributing editor Lindsay Ciulla writes: Welcome to a new series focused on agency management concerns. Each month we’ll share a new post dedicated to issues and concerns that senior staff deal with on a regular basis.
So, you pre-briefed a group of reporters on an upcoming announcement, with the expectation that they’re going to post a story shortly after your embargo lifts. You and the client worked closely together to make sure the reporter had all assets they’d need for a story.
“This week I’ve had a record number of people tell me they cannot talk to me because their PR department has blackballed me for no clear reason,” Chrissy Farr Tweeted on Apr. 6. “So glad you opened this door,” Tweeted CNBC editorial director Matt Rosoff the next day. “Every week I am stunned anew by how some PRs assume our business works, vs how it actually works.”
I’d love to say that every single time I’ve worked on a major announcement or campaign, things went perfectly – but that’s unfortunately not exactly how things go in PR. One of the most crushing let-downs is when an exclusive falls through. How do you react? What do you tell your client?
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
TechCrunch redesigned this week. Still green, less clutter. Built for the phone. Events and newsletters rank higher in the home page scroll than startups, venture and AI. No enterprise section. Parent Yahoo invested this money to build engagement. More changes due in 2025, EIC Connie Loizos says.
Adweek’s Mark Stenberg reports that Wired is getting into the awards business. The Wired 101 Awards will debut in October. Be on the lookout for the announcement.
BI’s publishing software knows what you’ve clicked on before and where you came from. Through Google Analytics, BI also knows how all readers react to certain content. Once you visit, BI knows whether to ask you to subscribe, or to register, or just to let you see everything for just that one visit. Conversions rose 75 percent this year. Digiday got the scoop (subscription required).
TheCUBE has announced the 2025 Technology Innovation Awards — 28 awards in all — including many in the AI space. SWMS subscriber Bhava Communications represents TheCUBE and alerted us to these opportunities.
Fascinating piece from Lars Lofgren about how a Forbes subsidiary — under the Forbes name — has managed to dominate Google search results…
…and now it turns out that Forbes — both iterations — are set to be purchased by the venture arm of Koch Industries. Nice scoop, Sara.
Now that it has sold off its classifieds business, the owner of Politico and Business Insider will go shopping for more titles. Don’t be surprised if News Corp. sells the WSJ to Axel Springer, especially if Lachlan Murdoch loses his grip on the media empire built by his politically conservative father.
